There was a whispered colloquy between two clerks, and then one of them told him that Mr. Wickersham was not in the city.  He had been called away from town the day before, and would be gone for a month or two.  Would the visitor leave his name?

“Tell him Adam Rawson has been to see him, and that he will come again.”  He paused a moment, then said slowly:  “Tell him I’m huntin’ for him and I’m goin’ to stay here till I find him.”

He walked slowly out, followed by the eyes of every man in the office.

The squire spent his time between watching for Wickersham and hunting for his granddaughter.  He would roam about the streets and inquire for her of policemen and strangers, quite as if New York were a small village like Ridgely instead of a great hive in which hundreds of thousands were swarming, their identity hardly known to any but themselves.  Most of those to whom he applied treated him as a harmless old lunatic.  But he was not always so fortunate.  One night, when he was tired out with tramping the streets, he wandered into one of the parks and sat down on a bench, where he finally fell asleep.  He was awakened by some one feeling in his pocket.  He had just been dreaming that Phrony had found him and hail sat down beside him and was fondling him, and when he first came back to consciousness her name was on his lips.  He still thought it was she who sat beside him, and he called her by name, “Phrony.”  The girl, a poor, painted, bedizened creature, was quick enough to answer to the name.

“I am Phrony; go to sleep again.”

The joy of getting back his lost one aroused the old man, and he sat up with an exclamation of delight.  The next second, at sight of the strange, painted face, he recoiled.

“You Phrony?”

“Yes.  Don’t you know me?” She snuggled closer beside him, and worked quietly at his big watch, which somehow had caught in his tight vest pocket.

“No, you ain’t!  Who are you, girl?  What are you doin’?”

The young woman put her arms around his neck, and began to talk cajolingly.  He was “such a dear old fellow,” etc., etc.  But the old man’s wit had now returned to him.  His disappointment had angered him.

“Get away from me, woman.  What are you doin’ to me?” he demanded roughly.

She still clung to him, using her poor blandishments.  But the squire was angry.  He pushed her off.  “Go away from me, I say.  What do you want?  You ought to be ashamed of yourself.  You don’t know who I am.  I am a deacon in the church, a trustee of Ridge College, and I have a granddaughter who is older than you.  If you don’t go away, I will tap you with my stick.”

The girl, having secured his watch, with something between a curse and a laugh, went off, calling him “an old drunk fool.”

Next moment the squire put his hand in his pocket to take out his watch, but it was gone.  He felt in his other pockets, but they were empty, too.  The young woman had clung to him long enough to rob him of everything.  The squire rose and hurried down the walk, calling lustily after her; but it was an officer who answered the call.  When the squire told his story he simply laughed and told him he was drunk, and threatened, if he made any disturbance, to “run him in.”